If I wanted pity, I got it because I'm illegitimate. And when I didn't want it I was mean and nasty.

My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them.

Mom never quit on me. My only regret is that she didn't live long enough to share some of the money and comforts my work in show business has brought me.

Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down.

Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.

In her whole life Mom never earned more than five or six dollars a week. Being without a husband, it was hard for her to find any place at all for us to live.

It has been an ache and a joy both to look over this big shoulder of mine at all my yesterdays.